CARNAVALES!!!

Last weekend was Carnaval here in Palma! Carnaval is like the Spanish version of Halloween, where everyone gets dressed up in the street, there are activities each day in all the schools, and there is a HUGE parade with elaborate floats and dances. It was simply indescribable!

First off, we had to plan our costumes. Encarna and I had been looking up ideas the whole week and trying to come up with something original. SO.... I bought some suspenders, a bow tie and some white gloves and went as a ventriloquist's doll! Encarna bought some black fabric to attach to a white skirt of hers and went as a zebra, and Raquel want as a leopard. We had some friends come over to the house and hang out first: a cowboy, a basketball player, and a carton of milk... heehee. Then we all went out to a discoteca to dance and see all the other costumes... Wow some people really got into it! It was really fun...

When we got home it wasn't as difficult to clean up for Raquel and I as it was for Encarna. We went to sleep and found out in the morning that we had no water!! Thank god Encarna got to shower and rinse out all the hair die the night before! We were worried she would have had to sleep with all of that on! ¿Menos mal, no?

So that was Saturday night... On Sunday there was a huge parade that passed through all of Palma with decorated floats, elaborate costumes, and different dances from Spain as well as South America. I went with my friend Paul, who is actually from Peru, and he explained the significance behind a lot of the South American dances... it was really interesting. There were also people on the floats that threw out candy and roses (considering it was on Valentine's Day too). It reminded me of the 4th of July Parade in Steilacoom... man do I miss that :)

San Sebastiá

Hey everyone! Sorry it has been so long since my last post... I always want to put some pictures on here and considering I no longer have a camera I waited until I could upload some of my friends' pics onto my computer :)

Just a couple weeks ago Palma celebrated its patron saint, or San Sebastiá (Saint Sebastian). I found out that this saints day is a lot "darker" than many of those I have been around for here. People traditionally dress up in devil/demon costumes and there are concerts in just about every plaza. Kids had school off in the middle of the week so that they could go celebrate with their families the night before. On that Tuesday I went out with some friends to the "torradas", which are basically barbeques in the streets. Palma sets up fires all over the place next to live music and you can bring your own meat and cook your dinner while you meet with friends in the street. The music was great. In every plaza there was a different type of music, and as the festivities went on the entire night, you could be sure to hit them all up if you wanted.

The food was delicious. Some of Encarna's friends picked up all the meat for us, which included all different types of chorizos, lomo de cerdo, and some long "bacon-y"-looking meat. Wow it was good... but a LOT of meat. Before I could finish one type someone was already throwing some other type at me. Yummmm!

So before the big show that came later we went to la Plaça de Cort (where the town hall is) and we got to see this incredible projected light show. They lit up the main building while telling a story.... and we got to see all over the world! It was amazing how good the technology was! There was this part where they "took us" to Africa and there were people beating on drums and all of a sudden it looked like the building was the inside of the head of a drum and there were hands beating on it... it looked sooooo real! The music that went along with it was really fun too... I can only imagine how much money they spent on all these festivities... and they were all free! This picture is of the cathedral here in Palma as it was projected on the town hall.. you can only imagine how cool the other parts were!

On Saturday (because San Sebastiá is more like a week-long fesitval in Palma), there was a huge performance/spectacle in front of the cathedral. There was a woman singing opera while fireworks shot into the background along with the music and men playing "gaitas" (or bagpipes) in deep, dark, ominous tones to represent los demonios. There was lots of fire and red lights everywhere, and men were hired to throw firecrackers in the streets to scare people. It was INTENSE! To this day though I'm really surprised that the Catholic Church would celebrate such a "devilish" holiday... but it was really worth seeing!

While Encarna and I had mentioned dressing up in devil costumes for the festivities, I think we saw enough people dressed up to make up for us. It was really cool to go out in the streets later and see everyone out celebrating. On Paseo Marítimo there must have been hundreds of people all dressed up, eating, drinking, and talking. I dont think we do anything comparable for the patron saint of Tacoma, do we? Hee hee. People really come together to celebrate here in Palma... or maybe they just really like to party! Haaha. Anywho, las carnavales are coming up here this weekend, which is like Spain's Halloween, so I'll be sure to post pictures of costumes soon! Hope all is well back home... Miss you all!

La Nochevieja

New Years Eve was a blast in Palma! It was really fun learning about all the different traditions they have here... It's quite different than in the States. Here they call it Nochevieja (the old night)...

Encarna invited a lot of her friends from work over for dinner at our place and at about 10 we ate. We had "cochinillo asado", which is a roasted suckling pig. We ordered it from a really well-known carnicería here and warmed it up in our oven again before eating it. It was quite the endeavor trying to re-heat this entire butterflied pig because our oven really wasn't big enough for it. We had to bend the snout of the pig towards the top of the oven in order to make it fit, and then the nose started to catch fire a little bit! I don't think our oven is equipped to cook a pig for 10 people :) In the end, we situated the pig enough so that it wouldn't set the house on fire and it all worked out. Along with the pig there were these delicious roasted peppers and potatoes... Boy were they amazing! We also had a bunch of different "pinchos" (or appetizers), like olives, tuna paté, crackers called Quelitas, pa amb oli (typical Mallorcan bread rubbed with tomatoes from the area, salt, and olive oil and then topped with Mallorcan cheese or meats), prawns, stuffed dates and some other things. It was delicious.

After dinner we turned on the TV to see the countdown like we do in the States. However, in Spain they have a different tradition for the countdown. They don't kiss when the clock strikes 12... Instead, they eat a grape for the 12 seconds leading up to 12, one for every month of the previous year. It was a lot easier this year than when I was in Granada because we had all the grapes prepped (with the seeds taken out and the peel removed)... I hear that New Year's Eve is one of the busiest days of the year for the Emergency Rooms here; I guess a lot of people choke on the grapes! It's really not that easy to do... a grape every second may seem easy but trust me it isn't.

After the countdown we hung out at our place for a while and danced to music and took pictures. Wow the time flew by... We didn't go out until about 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning! Then we went out to a club to dance a little more, and at about 8:30 we headed to the Croissanterie Mallorca, a restaurant chain here well-known for their breakfasts. It was really cool because there was a photographer there taking pictures of the "after-party" and we ended up in the paper the next day!! We had a large picture in color too! It was pretty awesome, and I made sure to grab a copy of "Última Hora" in the morning for a souvenir :)

I'm back to school now. We started back up on a Friday (only for one day) and now it's the weekend again. But I'm looking forward to getting back to work and hanging out with the kids. There's so much vacation time here because they also celebrate "Los Reyes Magos" (the three wise men). They actually give gifts on this day more than on Christmas. There was a big parade on the 5th of January with floats of each king that was really fun to see too. But now it's time for everyone to get back to the grind; you can tell that all the kids are still in "vacation mode", but after this next week I'm sure that will all change. Hope all of you had a great Christmas break, and I'll make sure to keep you all updated about any upcoming adventures here in Palma. ¡Hasta luego!

Berlin

So.... Berlin was quite the adventure. I went a few weeks ago with four friends of mine here: Becca, John, Bradley, and Anthony. We flew into Hamburg and then took a train to Berlin from there. I had never experienced Germany before so as you can imagine I was very excited to be there.

We finally made it to Berlin after all the traveling and we decided to take a taxi to our hostel, which was a quaint little place called John's Cozy Little Backpacker's Hostel. It was late and three of the people we were traveling with were getting over being sick (one was on antibiotics, one had just gotten over the swine flu, and one had sinusitis!) so a few of us grabbed a drink at a local bar and then we al decided to call it a night.

In the morning we were set to see all the tourist sights. On that first day we saw the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag which has a beautiful glass dome as a ceiling. In between the sight-seeing we made sure to stop at some of the German Winterfests to try some new type of wurst (which were all amazing by the way) and some gluwhein (hot mulled wine mixed with fruit)... Germany has got some good food!

In the afternoon we met up with a friend of John's that lived in Germany named Torsten and we hit up another Winterfest with him. He showed us some places to go and helped us order the best things to eat and drink. It was really nice having a guide there to help us. I even learned a few phrases in German to get by.

The next day we dicided to venture out of the main part of Berlin and go see Potsdam, which was the residence of Prussian kings until 1918. We visited the largest palace there and took a tour of the inside. It was gorgeous! Then we went outside and got some more food and hot drinks at the Winterfest there.

We went to the Sachenhausen concentration camp just outside of Berlin too, which was a very tough site to see. The camp was HUGE, and I couldn't believe how many people they were able to cram in there at one point. While it was very interesting to read all the history behind the camp and to take a guided tour, it was honestly really rather depressing.

We also went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which was close to the Brandenburg Gate. There were hundreds of stones which when separated created curvy paths that went up and down. The entrance to the museum was hidden within the stone sculptures and was all underground. Again, the museum was very interesting, yet sad.

We also saw Checkpoint Charlie, which was really interesting. There was a museum that explained everything about East and West Berlin and about the Berlin wall and the methods used to sneak people from one side to the other and all that jazz. It was really fascinating, although sometimes disturbing.

Things took a turn for the worse for me toward the end of the trip....

We went to this club one night called Matrix (Ill never forget the name) and I decided to set my purse down for a second and within NO time at all I turned around and it was GONE! While there was no place to lock up our luggage in the hostal I decided I thought it would be safer to carry all my important documents with me while we were out... That means my passport, my Spanish residency card, my camera, my IPOD, and all my credit cards we stolen at the same time! I couldnt believe it! And this was the night before we were going to leave so I knew I wouldnt have enough time to get a new passport in time to catch my flight back to Mallorca! While the others had tickets planned to go back to the islands too, I decided to stay back by myself and get things sorted out. The owners of the hostal were really understanding though and they let me stay for a couple more days. I made it to the US Consulate in Berlin the next morning and by late afternoon I had a new temporary passport. I was surprised at how easy it was to get things sorted out.

Caimari and Bike Trip

Hey everyone!

I went to this really cool festival in Caimari, one of the pueblos outside of Palma this last week. Caimari is really well-known for its olive oil, and they had the festival to show all of the products they had there. There were booths set up all over the place where you could taste different olives, olive oils, wines, and hierbas (a type of liquor that is typical in Mallorca). It was awesome! My favorite olives were these ones that were pickled in some spicy juices and stuffed with peppers! Wow they were delicious. We also went inside on of the factories where they had an old olive press and we got to see how the oil was made.

We also saw a prize winning sobrasada (Mallorcan blood sausage) that was enormous! I can not even imagine how many pigs it was made of... kinda gross. Although I'm not gonna lie... It doesn't taste all that bad!

But overall the trip was really fun. Helena's mom has a house in Caimari and she let us hang out there and meet some of the other family members. We really appreciated it.

The other day when I was at my gym I saw an advertisement for this bike trip called La Pedalada in which you could go on a tour of some of the older parts of Mallorca. We only had to pay 3 euros to rent a bike and we got a free T-shirt and some other goodies. It was super fun. We stopped with the group to take pictures toward the end, and in one of them we got a pretty good shot of the famous Cathedral here in Palma. It is soooooooo beautiful, and even more amazing inside.

As for the rest of my life right now... Things are great. I cannot believe that two whole months have gone by; the time has just gone too fast since I have gotten here. School is good. One of the student teachers and I are going to have tryouts for a Christmas performance of Grease soon! We are also having auditions to sing some Christmas songs in English in the middle of December. I really like the kids I work with as well as the teachers.

I'm starting to take Salsa lessons here too! Every Sunday there are free lessons at one of the bars along the water, and Sunday was my first time there. It was really fun, although I know I have a long way to go.. heehee.

Other news: I'm going to Berlin this weekend! One of my friends here wanted to go somewhere for her birthday and we found plane tickets for a total of 30 euros! I'm really looking forward to it and I will make sure to put pictures up when I get back!

Hope all is well with you! Love you all and miss you!

Halloween, Deiá, and the Contemporary Art Museum

Hey everyone! Miss all of you!

Since our last encounter....

Halloween was fun here. I wasn't expecting much considering that it isn't really celebrated here like in the States, but it turned out to be a bigger thing than I thought. Encarna had made a ladybug costume for Carnaval the year before and she wasn't planning on dressing up, so she let me borrow it. Some of the others in the program came over to our place before and we dressed them up in costumes. We had to get creative because we didn't want to spend any money on them. So we came up with a mummy, a devil, a woman, and a Christmas present on the spot. It was pretty fun. Then we went out on the town and there were tons of people dressed up in the street.

One weekend some friends and I went to Deiá, another pueblo on the island. It is known for its rocky cliffs and beautiful views of the ocean. It was incredible. We went on this little hike down through the mountains to get to this little inlet of water where the waves came crashing in. We climbed some of the rocks and sat there for a while and looked out at the water... it was beautiful! After we sat for a while we made the hike back up and took the bus back to Palma. There really are LOTs of things to see here.. I'm looking forward to visiting some of the other pueblos too.

I got to go on another field trip with my students! We took a trip to the Contemporary Art Museum in Palma called Es Baluard. It was only a short walk from Eugenio López, so we were able to spend a decent amount of time there. We learned about how the building was actually one of the old fortresses originally used in Palma to stop the pirates from invading. Some of the original walls were still up, along with a couple of the look-out towers they used back then. Inside there were lots of interesting works by Spanish artists as well as others from different countries. My favorite was a large paintbrush that had little windows carved in it. Although I didn't get the meaning behind it, I still got a kick out of it.

This last weekend I finally made it out to the Castle and the Cathedral here. I had been waiting for my residency card so that I could get in for free, and finally I got it. They were beautiful! I will have to go back to the cathedral during the day because I couldn't really get any good pictures during the day, but nonetheless it was still worth it. We lucked out because they were actually throwing an free choir concert when we got there, and the sound was amazing in such a large space. It was really quite breath-taking.

As for the castle...it was gorgeous. It was a beautiful day and we had to hike up quite a few flights of stairs to get to the top. The castle is situated in one of the highest points of Palma, and from the top you get an amazing view of the entire city. It would be the perfect place to take a little picnic some afternoon. Inside the castle there was a square-shaped well (a little unusual) in the middle of an open round courtyard.

Well, that's all for now... I'm sure I will have more to tell you soon! Hope all is well...

A LOT has happened since we last talked...

SO...

Since the beach I have done quite a bit. For all of you who have facebook I have a ton of pictures up from my current travels... You should check them all out. I'll throw a couple on here too though :)

First off, my friend Caity and I went to this old town called Soller in which you have to take this old train to get to. Im pretty sure they said it was one of the oldest trains still running too... it was rickety but fun. We went there to go hiking, but unfortunately after the hour and a half train ride there and back and our failure to look at the return times, not to mention we had existing dinner plans back in Palma, we had to cut the hike short. But this town was BEAUTIFUL. It is mainly an agricultural town known for its lemons, oranges, and caquis (a fruit that looks kinda like a tomato). We saw lemons that were the size of my head (and thats big:).. they were insane! So we spent a good hour and a half two hours hiking through the town and sight-seeing. It was really fun... then we can home to an organized potluck in which the people in our program joined with many other Europeans to share our "native" dishes. I made honey soy peanut chicken wings... sounds like Washington huh? Heehee. But they were good and everyone loved them.

Things in school have been great too. It was awesome because I was not informed until the day before that I would be going on an excursion with the kids in on e of my fifth grade classes to Son Real, one of the oldest pueblos in Mallorca. I got to accompany them on a 2 hour bus ride singing songs in English and watcing Looney Tunes... couldnt ask for more huh? Son Real was originally known as el Rafael d'en Rubert (Robert's Farm), a Moorish town, but after they were kicked out it was colonized in the 15th Century by Lord Real Móger i des Colombers and was made into an agricultural society. We got to visit the museum and see all the old artifacts they found and to learn about where some Spanish customs have come from. It was really cool, although the tour was given in Catalán which made it a little more difficult. Although you will all be proud to know that I am starting to at least understand it! I know a couple phrases too..

I also found out recently that the teachers I work with were going to be gone for about a week... which meant that I didnt have to be there either :). Needless to say, I decided it was the perfect time to fly to the mainland and visit my friend Sara. She lives in really quaint little town called Calatayud, which is close to Zaragoza in the "northern central" part of Spain. Sara and I studied together when we were in Granada and we traveled together too, so I was really excited to see her again. We visited the school she works at, the cathedral there, and made dinners together with her roommates. We made the most delicious paella there... mmm tasty. I think the most exciting thing I saw in Calatayud though was the ancient castle on the mountain there. It was made in the 7th Century! We climbed up to the top and had the most gorgeous view of the entire city. Unfortunately, it is common for some sketchy people to hang out in the castle so we made sure not to stay for long. There was this creepy man whispering things to us from the top tower so we decided not to venture that way. Too bad he had to ruin that for us... I felt like we were in medieval times and there was a troll that wouldn't let us pass. Kinda funny... but oh well. It was still fun to see though, and we took lots of pictures there.

While Sara had to work during the day while I was there, we decided to travel only on the weekend. We bought train tickets to go see Pamplona on Friday and it only took a few hours to get there. We booked a double hostel room at Hostal Hemmingway and were off to explore the town. The owners of the hostal were our age too, and they offered to show us a night on the town. So we hung out with them in the hostal and watched some spanish concerts on dvd until it was an "acceptable" hour to go out (2 in the morning!!! OMG).... Im telling you life is very different here. Needless to say that by the time we came back to the hostal I could hardly still stand I was sooooo tired.

In the morning (afternoon for us), we went exploring. We saw the Cathedral and the main plaza, the fortress there and the old look out point where people loved to paint murals. By far the most exciting part (and the reason we went to Pamplona) was our visit to Estafeta Street. That is were they do the running of the bulls every year. Unfortunately we couldnt see the real deal as it happens in June, but it was still cool to see where it all takes place. The bulls run all along this street and end up at the Bull Ring there, which isn't a shabby sight either. The picture below is of me standing where the bulls finally end up. I was expecting Pamplona to be a much bigger city... It really didnt take that long to see all the "main" sites, so the last day we spent just wandering and exploring the many windy narrow streets. It was a blast. And I found a bakery there that made gluten-free products too! Pretty awesome.

I got back from my trip on Tuesday and now Im getting settled again. Yesterday was actually my first day back at class (Thursday), and so today is the beginning of another weekend for me. Im excited because I get to teach the art classes today... we are making Halloween crafts. Its cute how excited they get about a holiday they dont really even celebrate much. And it turns out some of the people in my program still want to have a Halloween party, so dont worry guys, Ill still get to celebrate with you. I didnt want to buy a costume so my rooomate Encarna and I are going to add things to the one she made last year. Im going to be a lady bug... or mariquita in Castellano. Should be fun....

Sorry this message is packed with so much info guys, but I wanted to let you know about all that has been happening there... Feel free to comment on the wall and let me know how you are all doing! Miss you....

Lindsey